Benetton Treviso 13 Glasgow 24: match report

It takes something pretty special to win a man-of-the-match award for barely
25 minutes of rugby, but there were few in the Stadio Monigo on Saturday
evening who thought that Scott Wight's accolade was undeserved.

In his time on the pitch, Wight brought shape and composure to Glasgow's effort with a kicking game that change the territorial map of the contest. Most significantly, he also delivered the precise crossfield kick that allowed Al Kellock to knock the ball down for Tommy Seymour to clinch victory with his second try.

It was a marvellous all-round cameo by Wight, and all the more heartwarming in light of his experience against the same opponents at Firhill last year. Then, he had also arrived as a late replacement, but his most memorable contribution was to miss the easy last-minute penalty that would have given Glasgow a win. Instead, Treviso won 15-13, and Wight was rarely seen in a Glasgow shirt for the rest of the season.

Another year, another coach, and under Gregor Townsend, who took over at the start of this season, Wight has been transformed. "Things like that stick in coaches' heads, and maybe they think they can't trust you," he said of last year's nightmare. "But Gregor has come in, done a lot more with me and I'm starting to pick up some game time."

And a few admirers with it. Not many players run a game as well as a confident Wight, and the former fly-half Townsend must be tempted to start him against Newport Gwent Dragons at Scotstoun next Friday. Victory in that match would be Glasgow's sixth consecutive in in the RaboDirect PRO12 competition, a sequence that has gone a long way towards establishing Townsend's own credentials after his controversial appointment earlier this year.

After losing their Heineken Cup matches to Northampton and Ulster, his was also a significant ship-steadying exercise for Glasgow.

"For a large part of both [Heineken] games we competed really well, but we could have done better," said Townsend. "But every week is about learning and improving and we knew that having seen Scarlets and Ulster win in the PRO12 on Friday that we had to come away with a win here.

"What I find different this season, compared to my role with Scotland, is that you get the opportunity the next week to put right a defeat. If you get on a roll of more than two or three defeats it does affect confidence, so what happened here was good for the boys."

Glasgow have won more stylishly than they did here, but filthy weather in Italy's Veneto region meant style was never going to be the aim for either side. Territory was everything, and while Treviso commanded that aspect of the game in the first half, Glasgow began to take control in the second, even before Wight took over from the injured Ruaridh Jackson.

In fairness to Treviso, Glasgow also enjoyed dollops of good fortune in both their tries. For the first, after 65 minutes, Seymour pounced on a dropped ball as the hosts tried to play out of their 22 and got only the slightest touch when he dived for his touchdown. In the second, four minutes later, there was more than a hint of a knock-on as Kellock palmed the ball down for the winger to dive in again.

Earlier, Manoa Vosawai had given Treviso the lead with a 22nd-minute try. But for all their territorial domination in the first half, the Italians never led by more than four points, Jackson keeping Glasgow in the hunt with a couple of early penalties and a third just after half-time.

Seymour might have expected to be named the game's outstanding player, but he had no problems with the award going to Wight. "I'm a massive fan of his," said Seymour, whose brace strengthened his case for a Test call-up after being named in Scotland's autumn international squad.

"It was great for Scotty to come on like that, in a game poised as it was, and in those conditions, and maybe not having much game time recently. It was a tribute to him. He is a class act."